The Town: When music meets marketing
Estimated reading time: 3 mins
Big shows, bigger brands. The Town wasn’t just a music festival — it was a showcase of how deeply advertising is woven into culture now. From Coke’s mini-stage to iFood’s hologram club, the experience left me impressed, skeptical, and asking what we’re really paying for.
Yesterday I went to The Town in São Paulo. I thought I was going for the music. Specifically, to see Jacob Collier — who, by the way, already has 7 Grammys to his name. Not sure if that beats the rest of the lineup combined, but it sure felt like it when his set hit.
What stuck with me though wasn't just the show. It was the advertising.
The amount of branding was wild. Everywhere you looked — Coke, iFood, Hellmann's, Cif, Eisenbahn, Riachuelo, Itaú, Vivo… Whole pavilions, giant sneakers, holograms, giveaways, DJ sets. It felt like each brand had its own mini-festival inside the festival.
On one hand, it was impressive how creative the activations were. Coke had a podcast studio and their own lineup of shows. iFood built a two-story dance club with holograms of artists. Hellmann's was handing out sauces and even a bag that turns into a jacket. And Cif? They were literally cleaning people's sneakers inside a massive shoe-shaped stand.
Eisenbahn, the official beer sponsor, went big with a train-themed Rock Station and even branded the festival's zipline.
Riachuelo turned fashion into an experience, with their Arena Pool Jeans stand: neon rooms, bucket hats, dancers, and tons of branded swag.
Itaú mixed banking and fun. Their stand had retro arcade games about money, a rooftop DJ booth, and of course, the bright-orange Ferris wheel lighting up the skyline.
And Vivo brought a giant tree-inspired pavilion with karaoke, charging stations, and eco-friendly giveaways.
But here's the thing: tickets for just one day were around R$900. That's a lot of money to pay for the privilege of being bombarded with ads. It made me wonder — are we paying for the music, or to be the audience for these brand campaigns? Probably both.
And the people there reflected that mix too. A super diverse crowd: Gen Z dancing nonstop, millennials chasing comfort (and better food), families soaking it in. You could tell the event was designed to accommodate everyone — and brands were eager to reach every group at once.
So here's my takeaway: this is probably the future. Brands will keep embedding themselves deeper into culture, into music, into everything. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it feels too much. And as audiences, we'll have to decide how much of that we're okay paying for.
I went expecting music. I left with a mix of awe and skepticism — impressed by the scale, but also questioning the cost of being "part of the experience."